Apple threatens to kill Unreal Engine on iOS, Fornite may never return

[rockking1379]

3 minutes ago, The89Lunder said:

But all the server capacity Apples has backing the App Store.

Fast downloades and updates, notifications and so forth. Apple has expenses too, and they are also a company that wants to make money. (Or rather steal them these days, but that is a topic for another thread)

 

Something I have thought about. What if Apple had tiered approach. 30% and Apple will let you list it. And will host the app file. And handle updates etc. 
 

but you can opt for say 10% instead and you have to handle the app file download and updates. Apple just lists it (think torrent tracker) so users can fairly easily find it. The small time basement dwelling devs will probably start at the 30%. But companies like epic could easily handle the infrastructure for their apps and opt for a lower fee

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, Jack_of_all_Trades said:

 

By how much ?

20%. IDK if it's the same on console, but PC prices dropped at least.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Also, if Epic does win the lawsuit, I wonder if you could finnaly buy stuff through the Amazon apps on a iPhone, instead of going through safari.

[Tieox]

I'll just drop this here and bow out.

 

 

[rockking1379]

1 minute ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Also, if Epic does win the lawsuit, I wonder if you could finnaly buy stuff through the Amazon apps on a iPhone, instead of going through safari.

Literally so annoying. Like I wanna rent this movie. Oh I have to log in somewhere else to rent it so I can watch it on my phone

[thexzenon]

15 minutes ago, rockking1379 said:

you have to handle the app file download and updates

And then I can deliver malware through the app store. Thanks, but no.

[Kisai]

18 minutes ago, rockking1379 said:

Something I have thought about. What if Apple had tiered approach. 30% and Apple will let you list it. And will host the app file. And handle updates etc. 
 

but you can opt for say 10% instead and you have to handle the app file download and updates. Apple just lists it (think torrent tracker) so users can fairly easily find it. The small time basement dwelling devs will probably start at the 30%. But companies like epic could easily handle the infrastructure for their apps and opt for a lower fee

That would break the security sandbox.

 

In an ideal situation, Apple takes that 30% cut of all sales, but the developer of a "service" that has an on-going subscription only passes on the service charge (eg 5%) after that initial sale. 

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees Paypal maxes at 4.4% +30 cents.

https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees 3.5% + 30 cents, same-country only.

 

Apple isn't transparent about what their fees are.

 

However you can readily see the problem here, if there is a lower rate in some mechanism, then developers will just make "one app" and then make all their sub-apps part of the main app and thus pay Apple less for it. That's why these prices exist like they do.

 

Apple isn't giving bandwidth away for free, it's reviewing the software, and so forth.

 

[CommanderAlex]

28 minutes ago, ACEHACK said:

can we just forget fortnite for a sec, this is a prime case of antitrust  violation and apple should definitely get a slap on the face for this. lets just see what will happen in court. 

Well Epic overstepped on the policies that Apple has on their App Store, bear in mind, Apple controls their software and now this multimillion dollar game company wants to make a statement over Apple's 30% cut. The App Store is Apple's property, period. Epic should not be leaning towards the left over making this and they knew that by violating Apple's policy, forcing Apple to remove Fortnite from the App Store. 

 

How would you feel if someone comes into your house and enforces their own rules over you? 

[Thaldor]

This might turn out extremely interesting. I don't know how many games use mobile UE (most of them use Unity) but Apple is basicly threatening Epic with removing their ability to support devs using UE on iOS and most likely removing those devs from App Store after iOS updates and breaks something within UE. If this does go as far as touching MacOS dev status it could turn out really bad for devs using UE on some level. Interesting is what will the devs do if Apple goes and removes Epics dev status, they could easily sue Epic for not providing support on platform where they use(d) UE but on the other hand Epic has a possibility to give them Cupertino address and point their sues against Apple who pulled the trigger.

But then again, I don't think there is that many devs using UE on iOS. Just because compared to Unity UE still has quite inflexible source code and it probably still sucks hard time to do anything else than 1st or 3rd person 3D games.

"It's a privilege to be on iOS", it would be if Apple didn't have 47% of the phone sales which puts it into the market leading position at which point many regulations change and not in the way Apple would like them to change.

[AnonymousGuy]

9 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

"It's a privilege to be on iOS", it would be if Apple didn't have 47% of the phone sales which puts it into the market leading position at which point many regulations change and not in the way Apple would like them to change.

Ehhhh, antitrust is more about using your position to negatively affect the market.  Hard to make that argument when your position has been the same since day 1.

 

To quote Wiki on the Sherman Antitrust Act (which Epic is suing under):

Quote

distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.

It's explicitly stating that it isn't illegal to have a monopoly that was legitimately earned, which Apple did.  An example of an actual antitrust violation would be Apple paying developers to not develop Android versions of their apps, or kicking developers off who do so.

[pas008]

16 minutes ago, Kisai said:

That would break the security sandbox.

 

In an ideal situation, Apple takes that 30% cut of all sales, but the developer of a "service" that has an on-going subscription only passes on the service charge (eg 5%) after that initial sale. 

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees Paypal maxes at 4.4% +30 cents.

https://squareup.com/us/en/payments/our-fees 3.5% + 30 cents, same-country only.

 

Apple isn't transparent about what their fees are.

 

However you can readily see the problem here, if there is a lower rate in some mechanism, then developers will just make "one app" and then make all their sub-apps part of the main app and thus pay Apple less for it. That's why these prices exist like they do.

 

Apple isn't giving bandwidth away for free, it's reviewing the software, and so forth.

 

Yes but what about apps like uber, doordash, etc that make an app but get paid withinthe app for said services

On phone so can't look up info

This is kinda interesting little bit

[AnonymousGuy]

1 minute ago, pas008 said:

Yes but what about apps like uber, doordash, etc that make an app but get paid withinthe app for said services

On phone so can't look up info

This is kinda interesting little bit

Those apps all use Apple Pay on iOS.  Requires touchid/faceid.

[Kisai]

Just now, pas008 said:

Yes but what about apps like uber, doordash, etc that make an app but get paid withinthe app for said services

On phone so can't look up info

This is kinda interesting little bit

Because you're not paying for a service on the device at that point, you're paying for a service external to the app (eg physical food, being driven across town) and thus Apple is only acting as the payment processor, Apple isn't verifying the places you go, or checking your food for quality.

 

[CarlBar]

22 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

How would you feel if someone comes into your house and enforces their own rules over you? 

 

This analogy only works if that person isn't forced to come into your house in the first place.

 

Thats the problem with the way apple does business here. It services a large market, but it dictates to anyone else who wants to also interact with that market exactly how they do so. And in the personal computing space it's the only entity to do so. Every other hardware and software vendor surrenders control to a mixture of end users and government regulations once the hardware or software has been sold. Apple insists on retaining that control. That gives it a unique position within it's markets that no one else has.

 

Thats ultimately what this argument allways comes back to: Is it acceptable for a corporate entity in the personal computing space to retain complete or heavy control after the point of sale over it's hardware and/or software.

[harryk]

1 minute ago, CarlBar said:

This analogy only works if that person isn't forced to come into your house in the first place.

To continue the analogy, no one is forcing them to come to my house. If they want to sell me something they will have to come to my house and abide by my rules and my community's rules.

 

By purchasing an iOS device, I, as a consumer, have chosen the walled garden App Store which Apple created and supports. And I want it that way.

[JZStudios]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

They'll just remove the direct pay option and continue with the lawsuit... they just staged a big drama to get people to side with them even though there really isn't anything to gain for the consumers here either way. They made their point, they just wanted an excuse to sue and try to garner some public support to pressure Apple.

I don't know. Imagine making a game for the PC or consoles and you're forced to give up 30% of your revenue simply because people have to use a stupid storefront to download anything. And considering technically Fortnite is free and Epic put in support for in game purchases, not app store purchases, to go straight to Epic, Apple is basically stealing money. You can't really argue that it's an app store sale when it's an in-game purchase.

Is it good for consumers? Not explicitly. But smaller devs might get some more money.

1 hour ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Yes. I agree with commission, but if you bought something else on a item you bought from Amazon, should you pay the commission on that item, even if it wasn't through Amazon?

Yeah, this is basically like buying a laptop (or game) on Amazon, and then ANY transaction of money from the laptop or game Amazon claims 30% of. Shit don't work like that.

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

If you think Epic winning this fight would result in a price drop in the microtransactions you're sorely mistaken; it would just mean Epic gets 100% of your money and not just 70% of it. For you, the paying customer, nothing would change.

It's a possibility. There's some games on EGS that are slightly cheaper because of the better profit sharing margins.

[pas008]

15 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Because you're not paying for a service on the device at that point, you're paying for a service external to the app (eg physical food, being driven across town) and thus Apple is only acting as the payment processor, Apple isn't verifying the places you go, or checking your food for quality.

 

Still a service that's being provided in that regards so what is apples cut on those apps?

 

Digital or physical don't matter still a service 

 

Is apple charging them a 30% cut? 

[harryk]

4 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Yeah, this is basically like buying a laptop (or game) on Amazon, and then ANY transaction of money from the laptop or game Amazon claims 30% of. Shit don't work like that.

When you receive the laptop, Amazon's liability is complete (excepting for return window). With software there is an expectation of updates, bug fixes, repeated downloads etc. Apple provides all of this for free* in perpetuity. The developers pay for this and other services they receive from Apple by giving up a portion of their revenue.

[Thaldor]

16 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Ehhhh, antitrust is more about using your position to negatively affect the market.  Hard to make that argument when your position has been the same since day 1.

 

To quote Wiki on the Sherman Antitrust Act (which Epic is suing under):

It's explicitly stating that it isn't illegal to have a monopoly that was legitimately earned, which Apple did.  An example of an actual antitrust violation would be Apple paying developers to not develop Android versions of their apps, or kicking developers off who do so.

The big point here is that Apple is allegedly negatively affecting the markets as a market leader. They are not kicking anyone out because some are supporting Android, they are kicking out everyone who even tries to support other payment providers than Apple and possibly in some point everyone who uses game engine that Apple doesn't want them to use.

Same as Microsoft was to block everyone not supporting C# from Windows, "if they don't want to use it, they don't need to be on Windows" "it's a privilege to develop for Windows and if you are not wanting to follow the rules, you don't need to develop for Windows". Difference is Microsoft would be dragged through every and all courts before they could even write the first press release (notice: Microsoft is far from monopoly today, it is still market leader, just as Apple is market leader in phones).

[sof006]

Personally I hope Apple and Google get taken down a peg or two, they definitely hold a monopoly on their own stores

[CarlBar]

3 minutes ago, harryk said:

To continue the analogy, no one is forcing them to come to my house. If they want to sell me something they will have to come to my house and abide by my rules and my community's rules.

 

By purchasing an iOS device, I, as a consumer, have chosen the walled garden App Store which Apple created and supports. And I want it that way.

 

Actually you are forcing them to come into your house if there is no other way to sell their products to you. In fact in that situation they could make a case that your home is now a place of business whilst they are there and your required to treat them in accordance with relevant business laws and not private residence laws.

 

If you want a non-tech example from my own country right to roam laws means even if your a private landowner, depending on the nature and type of land you own you may not in fact be allowed to tell people walking through your land to get off your property. The rules about when an area qualifies under right to roam are fairly complex ofc. But the point stands. If you create a situation where people have good reason to go through your lands, you forfeit the right to tell them they can't.

 

As another example. All major business building must have provisions for access by disabled people. it's your business and your property, but you are not allowed to prevent disabled people from accessing your business by failing to make it possibble for them to do so easily. You rights as a business to choose who to serve are superseded by the disabled persons right to not be refused service, (directly or indirectly), on account fo being disabled.

[mr moose]

57 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Apple isn't giving bandwidth away for free, it's reviewing the software, and so forth.

 

Why do you keep conflating separate issues?  Apple does not have to provide a single bit of bandwidth for an app to use external payment processing.  And you have already proven that for in app purchases through another processor that would be as low as 2% (mind you I already pointed this out in the other thread multiple times).

 

 

[imreloadin]

I love it when billionaires fight

[harryk]

9 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

Actually you are forcing them to come into your house if there is no other way to sell their products to you.

Tough luck? No one is forcing them to sell to me nor do I even necessarily want to buy what they're selling.

 

10 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

If you want a non-tech example from my own country right to roam laws means even if your a private landowner, depending on the nature and type of land you own you may not in fact be allowed to tell people walking through your land to get off your property. The rules about when an area qualifies under right to roam are fairly complex ofc. But the point stands. If you create a situation where people have good reason to go through your lands, you forfeit the right to tell them they can't.

Ah I think we come from different cultures then. Here in #freedom USA, as far as my understanding goes there aren't really any exceptions to trespassing law. Maybe in the case of emergencies but even then you still probably have grounds to prosecute. 

 

Here's another analogy because we can't get enough of them haha...

 

As a consumer I can choose to only buy food from Whole Foods because reasons (doesn't matter why because I'm the consumer making my own choices). Whole Foods only sells high quality organic products because that's their choice as a business. Now if Frito-Lay decides they want to target me and sell me Cheetos they will obviously have to sell them at Whole Foods because I only shop at Whole Foods. However Whole Foods refuses to sell Cheetos because it does not meet their standards, so Frito-Lay will either have to give up, or modify their ways in order to meet Whole Foods's standard.

[Arika]

I guess Apple is the only company that would be allowed to do this....If this kind of control was exerted over any other OS/platform people would tear them apart. But Apple? Nah.